Title

Authors

Comments

Poster presentation for project 12. Formatting in the poster rendered some of the text illegible when the file was converted to PDF. Therefore the original Power point file was uploaded into the archive.

Identifier

ALS-NSCORT:WM9

Abstract

Increasing the efficacy of edible white rot fungi for degrading residual crop biomass and selection of strains that metabolize biosolid wastes is paramount in developing an effective solid waste recycling system in the ALS of the spacecraft. Previous work in our laboratory had validated the potential of edible white rot fungi in recycling biosolid waste of astronauts by exhibiting tolerance to addition of human biosolid waste (20%) in culture medium. Experiments were conducted to determine the suitability of various sources of nitrogen in enhancing growth in select strains of shiitake and maitake and to investigate strains of shiitake demonstrating greater tolerance to higher concentrations of food waste in culture medium. Significant growth differences were observed between maitake strains in media supplemented with either KNO3 or NH4CL as sources of N. These compounds were also more favorable to growth of the strains than urea. In shiitake, strains showed significant differences for their preference for source of N, however, neither KNO3 nor NH4Cl enhanced growth better than the control. Increasing the concentration of food waste in the culture medium reduced the growth of the four shiitake strains. Only strain LE002 grew in media amended with up to 50% food waste. There is a need to further screen additional strains of edible white rot fungi which will allow growth and basidiocarp production on media amended with food waste. They also underscore the importance of strain selection for use in long term space missions and the need to expand the test to higher percentages of incorporation, more shiitake strains and evaluate basidiocarp development.